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Topic: To default or not to default? (Read 65445 times)

Webster Tarpley maintains that the financial "default" of the United States would be a "cure" that's far worse than any disease that those who advocate such a default presume to eliminate. Many if not most Austrian Schoolers maintain the exact opposite.

Before answering the above poll question, please read the following excerpts -- the first from Tarpley's radio show, the rest from Robert De Fremery's excellent book, Rights vs. Privileges:

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"So what are they [the newly-elected Republican reactionaries] gonna do? Well, let's look back [to 1995]. Let's look back to Newt Gingrich [and] Dick Armey....What Newt did was to say: 'We're demanding savage, brutal cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. We want to gut unemployment benefits; we want to gut welfare.' -- which still existed at that time (Aid to Families with Dependent Children)....And he attempted to do a coup d'etat from the House of Representatives...So we got to this moment in October/November of 1995. Many people did not believe that this would happen. But what it was, was then that Gingrich essentially issued a kind of ultimatum to Clinton, saying: 'I demand these cuts. And if you don't give me the cuts I want, we won't pass a budget, and we will also prevent the raising of the debt ceiling on the public debt of the United States.' And this then went to a confrontation. This is where we're headed now, and we'll talk about this in the upcoming segment. This is now the grave danger that hangs over the world -- a lunatic ideology which has now been given at least a share of power in Washington....

"So it was 1995. It was Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House, [and] Dick Armey of Texas....They wanted to force the cutting and gutting -- the same agenda -- of the New Deal social safety net....So Gingrich then said: 'If you don't give me want I want, I will block the raising of the debt ceiling.' And the day that he made this announcement, the dollar went down 5% in one day. Now I submit to you: in the current situation of an economic depression and financial depression gripping the world, if you go to this brink, you will not get the dollar going 5% down in one day, you will get 25% down or maybe 50% down in one day. And that will blow up the world. That will pull down the rickety arrangements that we still have in the world that allow the production and sale and transportation of goods and services around the world. It is an action with genocidal implications, especially when you get further down the road to places like Somalia or Bangladesh, and Ecuador and Bolivia, and places like this. Let's just get into this, now.

"In the middle of this crisis [in 1995], Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico came forward to say that he had been meeting with a group of ten Wall Street insiders. And these look like they were hedge fund operators. One of them was Stanley Druckenmiller, who was, of course, from the Soros group at that time. And these Wall Street insiders had assured Domenici that if it came to a choice between eternal deficit spending and living beyond your means and rising debt, if it came to a choice between that and a default -- the bankruptcy of the United States, something that's never happened in all of history; the United States fails to make a payment -- that the Wall Street people thought that default would be, of course, a bitter pill, it would be unfortunate; but in the long run it would be better.

"Now, here's my premise. I want to stake a firm policy position: Any government official who knowingly courts, promotes or connives to make the United States go into default -- who contributes to the national bankruptcy of the United States -- is guilty of high treason! And there is also a little matter of wars. There's a war in Iraq, there's a war in Afghanistan, there's a war in Pakistan, there's a war probably in Yemen by now. Somalia also seems to be a theater of war. Basically every country around Iran is also a theater of war. If you attempt to bankrupt the United States government and force it into default under those circumstances, it is high treason. The Constitution says the Congress shall have the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. And if you attempt to sabotage that provision, saying -- 'No, the Congress should not have the power to borrow money on credit of the United States, and we're going to enforce that by extra-legal means; we're going to do it through Moody's, Fitch, and Standard & Poor's, through the debt downgrade and the inability of the U.S. to float a bond issue.' -- then you're violating the Constitution. That's already impeachable right there. So impeachment first, and then the rest.

"Now, the other thing is: it will always be possible to show the conniving. Domenici was lucky. No charges were brought against Domenici. I called attention to this in my journalism at the time. What Domenici had done was to enter into a conspiracy with these hedge fund operators, and essentially say: 'Well, they're telling me that this is what we should do.' Now, did Domenici come forward and say: 'I have examined these hedge fund operators to find out if they have conflicts of interest -- if there's insider trading and conflicts of interest going on because these hedge fund operators are simultaneously shorting the dollar, shorting U.S. Treasury bonds, Treasury securities, and otherwise taking a short interest or short view on the economic prospects of the United States. Are they selling this country short? Are they selling the United States of America down the river?' Domenici never referred to this question. He never said whether he had quizzed them or asked them about possible conflicts of interest, of the kind you can see on CNBC. (When an analyst comes on you can find out whether they own the stock, whether they’ve shorted the stock, or whatever it is.) It will always be possible to show that members of the legislature have been conniving -- once you have subpoena power and you can go after them, which the Justice Department will continue to have -- you will probably be able to show contacts between them and people who are doing the shorting. And I believe you can still find on the Internet: Peter Schiff, the failed reactionary candidate in Connecticut, he says that [the] default of the United States would be a good thing.

"Why do they want it?

"Remember: these are right-wing anarchists. Their theory is to 'starve the beast.' That means, essentially, bankrupt the federal government. Their idea is that if you cannot borrow money, if you destroy the full faith and credit of the United States government and make that into a laughing stock, then the United States government cannot borrow for any reason -- and this, of course, includes war. It's the same story. This is where you get into the little matter of a state of emergency and several wars -- quite a few wars going on now that you didn't have in 1995. But they feel that the response to the inability to borrow will be to force the government to live within the realm of the tax income, the tax revenue. And that will mean, of course, the destruction of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits...and all the other essential programs that make up the tattered remnants of the New Deal safety net. And, again, they will probably say: 'Well, no, we'll do it in such a way so that the defense budget is shielded.' Well, once you have default, you can't borrow for any reason. So they'll say: 'We'll maintain the funds going into the defense budget.' But, of course, once you can't float a bond issue, it's not clear that they'll be enough for that either. So this is a recipe for catastrophe.

"Such an event -- again, in 1995, it was minus 5%...in the dollar in one day -- if it becomes this mudslide, then you have a world catastrophe. Remember, if you read Surviving the Cataclysm...you will see that the nightmare of Paul Adolph Volcker (as long as he was at the Federal Reserve) was that once the dollar began to slide -- and we now have this -- once the dollar began to slide, it might turn into an unstoppable mudslide, as we've seen in the California valleys when it rains too much and the vegetation is not enough, of various places in Latin America -- the whole side of the mountain comes down, and there's no force available to stop it. We now may be very close to this. So we cannot allow a bunch of right-wing anarchists in the Congress to throw their crazy weight around at the expense of the American people, because make no mistake: The national bankruptcy and default of the United States would be catastrophic for the average American working family. It would be a catastrophe.

"And it's very easy to make facile statements about this -- how the U.S. is bankrupt and all this stuff. It's baloney. The U.S. is viable, much more so than Moody's, Fitch, and Standard & Poor's. As a matter of fact, as I've said repeatedly, Moody's, Fitch, and Standard & Poor's ought to be quaking in the criminal dock because of their corruption in 2008, when they were telling you that Lehman Brothers was Triple A and [that] subprime was Triple A until minutes before the bottom fell out of the whole thing, and those poor schmoes who believed them [were] left high-and-dry."

"There are those who believe that once bank credit has been allowed to expand, nothing can be done to prevent a collapse (that is, nothing economically sound and consistent with a free economic system). The Austrian school -- best represented by the writings of Ludwig von Mises -- takes this stand as evidenced in the following statement: 'There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.' (Human Action, p. 570).

"Dr. von Mises believes that the expansion of bank credit causes malinvestment and squandering of scarce factors of production that will inevitably lead to a crash and ensuing depression. But a more plausible theory is that all economic activity is continually reaching a new equilibrium between the total circulating medium of exchange and the goods and services being offered for it. In other words, an expansion of bank credit leads to a collapse not because of mis-directions in production but rather because of the operation of Gresham's Law. The use of bank credit as a medium of exchange gives us what Bishop Berkeley called a 'double money.' Even though bank credit is supposedly convertible into money on demand, nevertheless it is not as good as money. It is a short sale of money. And as the volume of these shortsales increases it is inevitable that Gresham's Law will eventually operate, i.e., the undervalued money (gold or legal tender 'fiat' money) will be exported or hoarded -- thus causing a collapse of bank credit.

"According to this theory, it is possible to avoid a collapse following a period of credit expansion simply by converting the existing volume of bank credit into actual money having an existence independent of debt, and at the same time take away the banking system's privilege of creating any more credit, i.e., force banks to confine their lending operations to the lending of existing funds." [Boldface emphasis added]

"There are some people who look with distrust upon 'printing press' or 'fiat' money. But they overlook one of the basic facts about money. It is true that we need a 'hard' money. But we should not make the mistake of associating 'hardness' with convertibility into gold. The essence of a hard money is not determined by the material of which it is composed -- or the material into which it is convertible. The essence of a hard money is that its supply is fairly stable and there are precise limits to it. In other words, gold itself is a comparatively hard money because the supply of gold is inelastic. Bank credit convertible into gold is a very soft money because it is elastic and there are no precise limits to its supply, i.e., it expands and contracts. And a purely paper or 'fiat' money can be a hard money if we set precise limits to its supply, or it can be a soft money if we set no limits to its supply."

"Soothing words about the effectiveness of 'government mechanisms' to deal with a liquidity crisis will not allay the fears of those who know its cause. There is only one thing that will allay those fears and that is to put our depository intermediaries on a sound basis. To do this we must convert the existing volume of bank credit into actual money and require banks to stop the unsound practice of borrowing short to lend long.

"Under this stabalized system banks would have two sections: a deposit or checking-account system and a savings-and-loan section. The deposit section would merely be a warehouse for money. All demand deposits would be backed dollar for dollar by actual currency in the vaults of the bank. The savings-and-loan section would sell Certificates of Deposit (CDs) of varying maturities—from 30 days to 20 years—to obtain funds that could be safely loaned for comparable periods of time. Thus money obtained by the sale of 30-day, one-year and five-year CDs, etc., could be loaned for 30 days, one year and five years respectively—not longer. Banks would then be fully liquid at all times and never again need fear a liquidity crisis."

"Since the objective is to have a 100% cash reserve (legal tender) behind all demand deposits, the U.S. Treasury would be ordered by Congress to have printed and then loaned to the banks sufficient new currency to fulfill that objective. In determining the amount to be borrowed, banks would treat their legal reserves at their local Federal Reserve Bank as cash. Those reserves will become actual cash as explained later.

"The debt incurred by each commercial bank to the Treasury could be immediately reduced by the amount of U.S. securities each bank held—simply a cancellation of mutual indebtedness. Henceforth the commercial banks would be prohibited from using the cash reserves behind their demand deposits for their own interest and profit. Those cash reserves belong to the depositors. They are funds against which the depositors wish to draw checks.

"On the day the cash reserves of banks are brought up to 100% of their demand liabilities, they would have outstanding loans which I shall call 'old loans' as distinguished from the new loans that will be made in the future. As these old loans are paid off, each bank would be required to use these funds to pay off their savings and time depositors, and offer them, as an alternative, negotiable CDs. There would be no restriction of any sort on the issuance of such CDs. The maturity dates, the amounts, and the rate of interest would be set by each bank. But banks would not be allowed to lend the funds so obtained for a longer period of time than those funds were available to them; i.e., they would be required to maintain the back-to-back relation suggested by George Moore.

"After each bank had paid off its time depositors, it would still have a sizable amount of 'old' loans outstanding. As the rest of these old loans were paid off, these funds would be used to further reduce the banks’ indebtedness to the Treasury. The treasury, in turn, would be required to use these funds to retire U.S. obligations held by investors outside the banking system. And as the Treasury did this, these investors would presumably buy negotiable CDs offered by the banks.

"Any remaining indebtedness of the banks to the Treasury could be paid off with funds derived from the sale of their 'Other Securities.' Indeed, a good argument can be made for having the Treasury figure in advance how much of each bank’s securities are going to have to be sold and require them to start selling those securities gradually, the day the changeover is made.

"As for the Federal Reserve Banks, they too should borrow from the Treasury sufficient new currency to bring their cash reserves up to 100% of their demand deposits (funds deposited by their member banks for safekeeping plus all government funds against which checks are being drawn by the government). The indebtedness of the Federal Reserve Banks to the Treasury could immediately be canceled by a mutual cancellation of indebtedness as was done by the commercial banks, i.e. by canceling an equivalent amount of U.S. obligations held by the Federal Reserve Banks. The remaining U.S. obligations held by the Federal Reserve Banks should also be canceled in view of the fact that they had originally been bought by the mere creation of bookkeeping entries. That practice would be abolished.

"The supply of money would now consist of the total coin and currency in existence, i.e., the amount previously existing plus the amount newly printed and loaned to the commercial banks and the Federal Reserve Banks. There would no longer be any confusion about what was meant by the supply of money. And the money supply would no longer be altered by such things as the lending activities of banks, or the decisions of individuals to switch funds from a checking account to CDs, or the payment of taxes to the U.S. Treasury, or the disbursement of funds by the Treasury, etc. Whenever an increase in the money supply was needed according to whatever rule of law was adopted (a strong case can be made for a 'population dollar', i.e., a constant per capita supply of dollars), the increase could be made with absolute precision by simply retiring that much of the remaining National Debt with the new money.

"S&Ls and MSBs [money services businesses] should be made to operate as they were originally intended, i.e., those who place their funds in such institutions must be reminded that they are shareholders and that they can draw their funds out only when those funds are available for withdrawal. A run on such institutions would no longer be a threat to the banking world. Nor would the failure of bankruptcy of any large bank, corporation, or municipality be the threat to the banking world that it is today. Any such poorly managed entity could, and should, be allowed to go through bankruptcy. There would be no danger of precipitating the type of financial stringency or credit crisis that is feared so much under our present financial system, and justifiably so.

"The multitude of governmental lending agencies that have arisen since the early ‘30s should be dismantled. The lending of money is not a proper function of government. It has been sanctioned so far because banks operated in such a way as to imperil a continuous flow of funds to areas that needed it. With banks now operating on a sound basis, free market forces should be relied upon to keep money flowing in the most healthful manner for all.

"Having corrected the destabilizing element of our monetary system, we should reject the concept of deficit financing and a compensatory budget. Those concepts arose under the old system because when the business and investment world lost confidence—thus leading to a contraction in the supply and/or velocity of money—the government was forced to indulge in deficit financing to try to keep the supply and/or velocity of money from contracting too far. Under the new system the supply of money is non-collapsible and therefore changes in the velocity of money (caused by changes in liquidity preference) would be minimal and self-regulating.

"Government supervision or regulation of banks would now be greatly simplified. In place of all the governmental agencies with overlapping functions that are busily engaged in regulating various activities of banks, we need have only one agency. Its sole function would be to make certain each bank is keeping its cash reserves at 100% of its demand deposits, and that the maturity profile of its outstanding CDs meshes with the maturity profile of its loan portfolio. Except for these restrictions, banks would be free to set the amounts, the maturity dates, and the rates of interest on the CDs they issued. They would also be free to make loans for any purpose they pleased, secured by any collateral they deemed adequate."

3- Order Financial Disarmament which means dismantling the shadow banking system and freezing the instruments of speculative trade. All the off sheet balance products will be eliminated which means dismantling the hedge funds, derivatives, naked short selling etc… This also means democratizing monetary policy by taking their control over the monetary policy which forcefully challenges the hegemony of the Wall Street financial institutions. (The term “financial disarmament” was initially coined by John Maynard Keynes in the 1940s.)

4- Reverse the very very bad rules from the past:

Reverse ->1999 Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial from investment banking by the Clinton Administration. Reverse ->2000 Derivatives and credit default swaps were excluded from regulation. Reverse ->2004 The greatest mistake setting aside capital requirements by exempting the investment banks from maintaining reserves to cover losses on investments engineered and This allowed the investment banks to: Leverage financial instruments beyond any bounds of prudence. (Bear Stearns pushed its leverage ratio to 33 to 1 advised by crappy computer models – even 100 to 1 is heard!.)

5- A; This only can be done if the current failing financial Hanky panky hokes are removed from their offices. The real problem continuous if these criminal greedy dokes stay where they are right now especially when the whole “Fancy Fair” is Nationalized.

5- B; Make the Illegal FED really Federal. The Federal Reserve is not really Federal but a couple of private banks owned by a hand full of families now!

5- C; During this process Skip J.P.Morgan out of the equation. Saves the American taxpayer 3%.

FED->2%->J.P Morgan->4,5%->Treasury->1,5%.

5- D; Start publishing real figures again which are “for real” this time.

6-Separate the bad mortgages from the good ones. - Revalue the mortgage-backed securities accordingly. - Completely sort out counter party risk for credit default swaps and interest rate swaps.

Mark my words, mark my words if this is not done, the country will go down!

"It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges, at the hands of men, who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan." ~Thomas Edison“I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.” ~Thomas Jefferson

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." ~Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President

"It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's totally out of control. [...] This idea that the government has services or goods that they can pass on is a complete farce. Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we ought to challenge that concept." ~Congressman Ron Paul

"Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!" ~Congressman Ron Paul

"I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire, ...The man that controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply."~Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild"The United States lost its sovereignty in 1933. It is in receivership to the hidden creditor. The bankrupt government is a puppet to the real master, as declared by Banker Rothschild..." Excerpt from the book: They own it all (INCLUDING YOU!) By means of toxic currency - Ronald MacDonald and Robert Rowen, M.D.

"It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges, at the hands of men, who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan." ~Thomas Edison“I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.” ~Thomas Jefferson

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." ~Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President

"It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's totally out of control. [...] This idea that the government has services or goods that they can pass on is a complete farce. Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we ought to challenge that concept." ~Congressman Ron Paul

"Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!" ~Congressman Ron Paul

"I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire, ...The man that controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply."~Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild"The United States lost its sovereignty in 1933. It is in receivership to the hidden creditor. The bankrupt government is a puppet to the real master, as declared by Banker Rothschild..." Excerpt from the book: They own it all (INCLUDING YOU!) By means of toxic currency - Ronald MacDonald and Robert Rowen, M.D.

What conclusion do you hope readers will draw from the above quotes -- that sheepishly letting austerity-obsessed elite bankers and the politicians who dutifully serve them force the United States into national bankruptcy is therefore a good thing? That the "only" way to roast the pig (metaphorically speaking) is to burn down the house?

Are people supposed to conveniently ignore the disastrous fate suffered by all the other countries that have been subjected to just this sort of criminal "shock therapy," lest they start raising objections that austerity-promoting Ausrian Schoolers are unable to answer without revealing whose class interests they truly serve?

I'm surprised at how few people responded to the above poll, and am frankly disgusted that the majority thus far have sided with the Austrian School on the question of whether the financial terrorists who engineered this crisis in the first place should -- via their puppet politicians in Washington -- be allowed to drive the U.S. into national bankruptcy.

If a critical mass of people don't soon awaken to how they're being manipulated via the ridiculously false Austrian School-vs.-Keynesian School paradigm into blindly embracing a false dilemma whereby our "choices" are artificially restricted to only those "solutions" that further enrich a handful of robber barons while impoverishing and enslaving the rest of us, then this country will soon suffer the same fate as the 3rd world countries that John Perkins writes about in his books on the subject.

Must we find this out the hard way?

Must we insist on allowing ourselves to be conned by ideological snake-oil salesmen into believing that the only "alternative" to staying in the frying pan is to jump into the fire?

Protean

I'm surprised at how few people responded to the above poll, and am frankly disgusted that the majority thus far have sided with the Austrian School on the question of whether the financial terrorists who engineered this crisis in the first place should -- via their puppet politicians in Washington -- be allowed to drive the U.S. into national bankruptcy.

If a critical mass of people don't soon awaken to how they're being manipulated via the ridiculously false Austrian School-vs.-Keynesian School paradigm into blindly embracing a false dilemma whereby our "choices" are artificially restricted to only those "solutions" that further enrich a handful of robber barons while impoverishing and enslaving the rest of us, then this country will soon suffer the same fate as the 3rd world countries that John Perkins writes about in his books on the subject.

Must we find this out the hard way?

Must we insist on allowing ourselves to be conned by ideological snake-oil salesmen into believing that the only "alternative" to staying in the frying pan is to jump into the fire?

"Must we find this out the hard way"

Unfortunately it looks that way--too many 3 cornered hat types at this forum.

And as far the general TV watching public goes--they're just raring to vote Republican next time around, so, unfortunately, it looks that way.The banksters of war and finance will get there way with their austerity politicians passing laws and sending the people off to debtors prison or starvation in the streets, unfortunately--we're out numbered Geo.

The banksters of war and finance will get there way with their austerity politicians passing laws and sending the people off to debtors prison or starvation in the streets, unfortunately--we're out numbered Geo.

Yes, but I suspect the primary reason we're outnumbered is that most people aren't even aware that there's a far better alternative to the false "solutions" they've been exposed to thus far.

It was in the spirit of reducing (to the greatest extent possible) this apparent lack of mass awareness that I created the following threads:

I say we walk away. Most of the hijacked American government engaged in this criminality which has been totally against our constitution. We are not bound by it.

I am more apt to do exactly like the Declaration of Independence instructs...

(...)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

Once that is done, reaffirm our Constitution--because it is the best in the world, and would have worked perfectly if the people hadn't fallen asleep while they were infiltrating with their corruption.

The question I asked had specifically to do with default or national bankruptcy, so is that your veiled way of saying we should sheepishly let banker-owned politicians force the United States into default, even though this would immediately necessitate the imposition of genocidal austerity measures?

Quote

I am more apt to do exactly like the Declaration of Independence instructs...

(...)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

Congratulations: you've actually managed to wrap both ruling class-imposed national bankruptcy and IMF-style austerity in the American flag!

Once that is done, reaffirm our Constitution--because it is the best in the world, and would have worked perfectly if the people hadn't fallen asleep while they were infiltrating with their corruption.

Actually that's not true because, good as the Constitution is overall, it nevertheless contains a fatal flaw. As anyone who's seen the first hour of The Money Masters already knows, banking oligarchs were well aware of the enormous threat that debt-free paper money posed to their privilege -- and hence to the unearned fortunes this privilege afforded them -- and so used their powerful influence to ensure that Congress was given the power to borrow paper money at interest from a private bank instead of the power to issue such money itself at no interest. These oligarchs have been exploiting this Constitutional loophole ever since, and the American people are now suffering through yet another banker-engineered depression because of it.

That's why the only "solution" worthy of the name is one that includes the monetary reform measures called for here.

Pay back China the 900 billion they own and close the federal reserve banks and it's all but a moot point. The reality though is that won't happen, and the creditors will come calling demanding repayment or they WILL foreclose on the US, either by letter or by bullets.

Default is never good, but the massive question then is how can the US pay back 14 trillion+ in debts with virtually no manufacturing any more, while the creditors are pounding on the door? We can't move under the cover of night, and we can't change our phone number, so what then? We've been saying, "the check is in the mail" for years now, and it only gets worse. Debt-based economy is futile and only benefits the creditors.

I think default can be avoided, but MAJOR changes would have to be implemented immediately, but unfortunately, I don't think the American public has the stomach to handle the dirty work.

Instead of default, current expenses must be reduced, period, or it will never work. At the same time, income must be massively increased to attempt to begin paying back our debts.

Remember that George Jr. took office of a country that had a budget surplus, supposedly, and within 2 years that surplus was completely gone. And the following admin continues to add to it the debt. The wars we have started are the primary reason for the latest huge increases in debt. We are financing something we couldn't afford in the first place.

Major changes are required. Such as an immediate halt to all military actions worlwide by US forces. We must retreat to reasses our position. Return home all fighting forces and cut in half, at least, the current military bases and operations around the world.

I mean seriously, how the heck are we building a nearly 1 billion dollar embassy in Iraq, and for what? Politics and the protection of the oil from a non-existant boogeymen.

I can think of several government agencies we could shut down overnight and not miss them at all, and most wouldn't even know they are gone.

Logged

"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." 1 Timothy 6:10 (KJB)

The question is -- do we go through this as slaves, or as free people able to farm, feed ourselves, protect ourselves, have schools we want -- AND rebuild? Re-industrialize?

It is very basic. What do we need? Freedom is that key. Freedom is what made America great to begin with. Not as an "idea," but as a necessity. Freedom to be independently responsible for ourselves such as the freedom to grow our own food. Freedom from tyranny with the ability to gather, express ideas & go from there in best courses of action for the community to survive. The list of necessities that Freedom provides for in survival is almost endless.

Love, e

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worcesteradam

what are the other alternativesyou havent given us the Tarpley alternativeit is implied from what is highlighted that its monetising the debtare you arguing that this is an entirely safe way to go?Lets say 10 trillion in debt was monetised, you might conservatively get 50% dollar devaluation, that could set off hyperinflation if dollar holders around the world decide to start selling

WRONG! That is precisely the lie that ruling-class oligarchs want us to accept as divine gospel, lest a critical mass of us break out of our conditioned state of learned helplessness and realize where the real power lies:

And I'm sick to death of brainwashed ideologues parroting this lie, all because a handful of Austrian School propagandists have wrapped it in the American flag or in the flag of "liberty."

Quote

It is very basic. What do we need? Freedom is that key. Freedom is what made America great to begin with. [blah blah blah]

Oh please, do you really think that invoking feel-good platitudes about "freedom" in any way changes the fact that national bankruptcy and genocidal austerity measures would lead to the opposite of freedom -- just like they have in every other country that's been subjected to this sort of "shock therapy"?

what are the other alternativesyou havent given us the Tarpley alternativeit is implied from what is highlighted that its monetising the debtare you arguing that this is an entirely safe way to go?

As if the question of what I advocate as a solution is a mystery or something!

Instead of trying desperately to erect a Keynesian straw man in place of my clearly stated views on what the true solution to this financial crisis is, read the following and you'll know exactly what I believe is not only the "safe" way to go, but the only way to go if we are to avoid a cure that's even worse than the disease:

Edit: with regard to "monetizing debt," as I've been saying over and over again for years now, the quadrillion-dollar derivatives debt should simply be wiped off the books -- since derivatives aren't even assets, but mere gambling bets of Wall Street speculators -- while the debt generated by fractional reserve banking should be phased out of existence via the process of converting -- in the maner advocated by Robert De Fremery in the excerpts I posted above -- what most people already believe to be money into actual money that (unlike now) exists independently of debt. And delinking the creation of money from the lending of it is, of course, the very opposite of "monetizing debt." (I'm sure I'll have to slowly explain that at least a dozen more times.)

Protean

what are the other alternativesyou havent given us the Tarpley alternativeit is implied from what is highlighted that its monetising the debtare you arguing that this is an entirely safe way to go?Lets say 10 trillion in debt was monetised, you might conservatively get 50% dollar devaluation, that could set off hyperinflation if dollar holders around the world decide to start selling

well i totally disagree with Tarpleyhe wants a Tobin taxwhy is it every time i read LaRouche peoples stuff they promote what the nwo promotes

Tarpley advocates a national Tobin tax levied by the U.S. Congress. The NWO promotes a global Tobin tax levied by the UN.

Regardless of whether one supports the Tobin tax concept or not (I'm a single-taxer myself), it's no less absurd to equate the national tax promoted by Tarpley with the global tax promoted by globalists than it is to equate a local sales tax with a national sales tax.

Whenever an austerity-promoting ideologue attempts to wrap in the flag of "liberty" the insanely absurd notion that the financial terrorists who engineered this economic crisis in the first place should -- via their puppet politicians in Washington -- be allowed to drive the U.S. into national bankruptcy, and thereby necessitate the imposition of genocidal austerity measures, people would be well-advised to remember the following quote:

"Have you ever wondered how everyone -- governments, corporations, small businesses, families -- can all be in debt at the same time and for such astronomical amounts? Have you questioned how there can be that much money out there to lend? Now you know: there isn't. Banks do not lend money; they simply create it from debt....Isn't it astounding that, despite the incredible wealth of resources, innovation and productivity that surrounds us, almost all of us -- from governments to companies to individuals -- are heavily in debt to bankers? If only people would stop and think: 'How can that be? How can it be that the people who actually produce all the real wealth in the world are in debt to those who merely lend out the money that represents the wealth?' Even more amazing is that once we realize that money really is debt, we realize that if there's no debt, there'd be no money. If this is news to you, you are not alone. Most people imagine that if all debts were paid off, the state of the economy would improve. It's certainly true on an individual level. Just as we have more money to spend when our loan payments are finished, we think that if everyone were out of debt, there would be more money to spend in general. But the truth is the exact opposite: there would be no money at all. There it is: we are totally depenedent on continually renewed bank credit for there to be any money in existence. No loans, no money."

worcesteradam

Denis Healy handed Britain over to the IMF in 1976 (on false pretences) and thereby officially gave away part of our sovereignty/democracy.It resulted in 'market liberalisation' as the NWO calls it, but not genocide

Greece just got handed over, also by a member of Socialist International, the head of the cabal no less, no genocide yet.

Denis Healy handed Britain over to the IMF in 1976 (on false pretences) and thereby officially gave away part of our sovereignty/democracy.It resulted in 'market liberalisation' as the NWO calls it, but not genocide

Not yet, because there was still a social safety net. That and wages v living costs were more favourable. Now both of those are under serious threat. I'm not exactly finding it easy to make a living under the current circumstances.

Denis Healy handed Britain over to the IMF in 1976 (on false pretences) and thereby officially gave away part of our sovereignty/democracy.It resulted in 'market liberalisation' as the NWO calls it, but not genocide

Greece just got handed over, also by a member of Socialist International, the head of the cabal no less, no genocide yet.

"Yet" being the operative word. But contrary to what you and others apparently want everyone to naively assume (lest they awaken in time to stop the "correction" that's about to be imposed on them), this in no way changes the fact that that is precisely the direction in which many if not most Western nations are quickly headed (to say nothing of the engineered horrors that have already been visited upon Third World nations):

I have been hearing a lot of chatter recently in coffee shops and lunch restaurants about the financial crisis in Greece. As I eavesdrop, the impression I get is that people are trying to convince themselves the problem is “over there.” They discuss how Greece could have avoided the situation and debate what they should do now. So naturally it is an isolated, country-specific problem “over there,” right?

But isn’t this déjà vu? Haven’t we seen this before?

Indeed. It is the same situation that has occurred in Iceland, Ukraine, Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, England, and countless other countries. It is not a problem of individual countries, but rather the global monetary system that is built on debt and rules most countries. So the problem is very much “over here.” Most of the world, especially the United States, is just as vulnerable as Greece. It is only a matter of time.

Debt-Based Money and Financial Predators

Countries are vulnerable to attack because their currencies are nothing but floating debt instruments controlled by bankers. This means they are not countries as much as administrative districts for the banks that rule them. This is why Thomas Jefferson said “banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies.” Bankers and their Ivy League servants can overthrow a country more completely than an army can.

Financial predator George Soros has demonstrated this repeatedly. He is lauded in the Financial Times of London and the Wall Street Journal as free market jihadis from the Chicago School and Harvard Business say he is just playing on a rational, fair, free market playing field. Really? So the Asian currency crisis of 1997 that impoverished many countries was a fair market transaction between several million poor peasants in rice fields and this billionaire predator working in conjunction with even more powerful debt lords behind the IMF? That’s a “free market?” Absolutely, and you are Batman.

Ivy League theory can spin any fiction into fact. These economists are lost in their abstruse academic journals, insanely detached from real life. They would no doubt think that a neighborhood kid stealing a pair of jeans from the local store is wrong, but a billionaire participating in a transaction that “steals” much more from millions of people and loots their country is just a shrewd free market investor. They are advocating the equivalent of letting your kids sleep in a tent in your backyard just after a serial killer who has murdered twenty other kids moves into the neighborhood. Why would we leave ourselves open to such a threat? The United States is in this situation. Literally, the door is unlocked and it is just a matter of time before the financial predators decide to enter. Will we wakeup before it is too late?

The Myth of Modern America

We must recognize that our monetary system is nothing but bank credit, i.e. debt, so it is entirely open to attack. Even if you are not personally in debt, any savings you have is just a measure of how much another person, business, or government is in debt. In our current system, no money gets into circulation except by borrowing from banks. There is no other source! The United States issues no sovereign money! That is not freedom ladies and gentlemen. We are hostage to the “illuminated” debt lords who enrich themselves by putting everyone else in debt servitude, which makes us vulnerable to predators like Soros.

The United States government has failed to do its job as dictated in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution for 100 years—control and defend the value of our money. Therefore, the United States is not a sovereign country, and the American people are not free. It is time to admit the truth and either do something about it, or stop blowing up stuff on the 4th of July believing a myth. If your Democrat and Republican politicians do not talk about this issue, they are either too ignorant to have the job, or they are getting banker kickbacks and staying quiet on purpose. Either way, kick them out, stop voting for corporate puppets, and demand real leaders who will do their job...No other issue matters at this point. Most of politics is a ruse to distract you from the fact that your country and your economy are hostage to banks and financial predators.

The Unstable Mathematical Flaw of Our Economic Model

The only way for this system to keep running is for us to collectively go deeper in debt to the bankers. That is why the US government continues increasing the debt ceiling. They have no choice as long as they refuse to do their constitutional job and provide sovereign money that is not an interest-bearing debt to banks. Why must we go deeper in debt? Our economic model is built upon fundamentally unstable math: P < P+I. P is all the money in the economy at any given time (principal). I is the interest that compounds on top of P that must be paid back. So the economy is constantly running faster and faster to generate more P in order to payback P+I. That creates perpetual exponential growth, perpetual increasing velocity, and deeper servitude over time. I grows faster than P, and since production has been sent offshore, there is no way out of the black hole without borrowing more. This is precisely what people like George Soros prey upon—currencies stuck with an impossible debt load. This system guarantees an eventual attack. To repeat: we have no money unless we borrow. We have no way to pay it back unless we borrow more. Borrowing more is precisely what eventually kills the economy and allows predators to become billionaires while the rest of the population loses their life savings. What can be done about this?

Typically when countries get attacked in these ways, they leave it up to the financial powers to tell them what to do. The IMF comes in and protects capital holders by requiring the government to shutdown social services, thereby cutting off the lifeline of the lower classes. This is class warfare in its most vicious form. It literally results in starvation just to protect the cashflow of rich financiers who hold the country’s debt. We also see Greece being required to outlaw cash for some transactions. This is a strategic goal the financial powers have for the world. A cashless society makes people completely hostage to electronic debit/credit cards controlled by the banks. Austerity is a bad plan for everyone except the upper class.

Premature Move: End the Fed

Some say the solution is to end the Federal Reserve, thereby cutting off the financial powers at the top. While it is the head of the monopolistic banking cartel which has no place in a free republic, eliminating it before any real monetary reform might only be the opening for the IMF to takeover. It could also give the top predatory institutions like JP Morgan Chase more power over the people than they already have. The Fed is to some degree a brake on these firms. As long as Wall Street has a money monopoly, thanks to the government’s unbelievable response to the crash of 2008 shutting down smaller banks and consolidating Wall Street into a far more powerful group, I think we want a pseudo governmental organization providing some form of control. At a minimum, we need real money first from a source other than this monopoly.

False Solution: The Gold Standard

Many people say the gold standard would solve this problem. But it only lasted 33 years and resulted in the banking system vacuuming up much of the gold into its own vaults! The gold standard was a ruse. It just required bank reserves to be gold, which demonetized silver and made people completely dependent on interest-bearing loans from the rich people who had the gold. This is not a solution. Gold held in our own hands is indeed debt-free money, which is why everyone reading this article should acquire some, but there is not enough gold to make it a useful medium of exchange in the current economy. It would create a massively constrained money supply, which means we would be as dependent as ever on bank debt. At this point the gold standard would be a step backward.

Real Solution: Asset or Wealth Money

The solution is to create money that is not debt. This would reduce the servitude relationship to bankers and the exponential growth of compound interest—the P < P+I problem. We the people need to make this happen. Expose the fraud of national elections by not voting until you find a leader willing to address this issue. But find such a leader!

The ultimate fix must come at the federal level, but until real leaders replace the corrupt ones there now, efforts can be made at the state and local level....Turnoff the TV news dominated by zombie candidates and their political ads full of irrelevant talking points pumped out by the central PR machine in DC. Push your state legislatures to spend money into circulation, rather than borrowing from banks, for infrastructure projects approved by the people (see the Minnesota Transportation Act). Call your legislators, call them again, and have others call them. Take action on this issue! States would then be able to recover some of their constitutional autonomy rather than being unconstitutional hostages to the debt lords. You can also start local community networks that are based simply on serving others (see themoneyfix.org). In such a system, providing a good or service for your neighbor earns you a credit and your neighbor an equal debit, which gives her the incentive to do something for you or someone else in the community ledger. This is not a macro solution, but it is at least a step toward recovering our humanity and bringing our communities together again instead of pitting everyone against each other fighting for limited bank credit.

We do not need to be in debt to mega international banks to have an economy and create value! Debt extracts value. It is just a claim on someone else’s labor. We would be far better off without much of the elite financial industry that enriches itself off our debt (though some deeply flawed economic statistics, e.g. GDP, would drop). The notion that we cannot work together without an oligarchy of banker middlemen is pure propaganda that has been pounded into our heads for years. We must rise above it and start the process of eliminating debt and moving on a trajectory toward a more holistic life as sovereign communities and free individuals once again. This is the only hope to begin the process of restoring the American Republic before a crisis far worse than Greece hits home.

Welcome to the age of rage – riots and revolutions will be the reaction to the next stage of the new world order

Paul Joseph WatsonPrison Planet.comTuesday, June 8, 2010

Top historians, social and financial analysts are warning that the draconian austerity measures currently being prepared by governments in the west will cause riots and even revolutions as people react with fury in response to their jobs, savings, basic public services, pensions and welfare money being seized by the financial terrorists who caused the economic collapse in the first place.

British historian Simon Schama is a creature of the establishment and he makes it clear whose side he is on at the end of his recent column for the Bilderberg-controlled Financial Times entitled, The World Teeters on the Brink of a New Age of Rage. However, the fact that he is an elitist at heart only makes Schama’s predications all the more alarming. This is someone on the inside who is painfully aware of the fact that the imminent attempt on behalf of the globalists to enforce so-called “austerity measures” on the people of the west, which in reality is a euphemistic term for the next leg of the new world order, is not just going to cause riots and mass social unrest, but it could even lead to revolution if the elite allow the situation to spiral out of their control.

Schama’s forecast that “we might be on the threshold of an age of rage” is not to be taken lightly. This isn’t coming from Alex Jones, Max Keiser or Gerald Celente, it’s coming directly from a man considered to be Britain’s pre-eminent contemporary historian.

Schama writes that the coming austerity measures, particularly in America where anger “targeted at an elitist federal authority is raging through the US like a fever,” will require “Barack Obama to be more than a head tutor. It will need him to be a warrior of the word every bit as combative as the army of the righteous that believes it has the Constitution on its side, and in its inchoate thrashings, can yet bring down the governance of the American Republic.”

In other words, Obama will have to ditch “misplaced obligations of civility” and become an authoritarian enforcer in order to emerge successful against the rising tide of Constitutionalist rage that will be directed against the coming austerity fascism.

We’ve all seen the numerous videos of protesters in Greece rioting, fighting police, and even firebombing banks and killing people in reaction to the crippling austerity measures imposed by the government in the name of appeasing the mandates of the European Union’s near $1 trillion dollar bailout package. However, the establishment media as a whole has largely failed to identify precisely what those austerity measures are, and more importantly how they will almost undoubtedly lead to massive social dislocation in the UK and the United States when implemented.

The austerity measures currently being considered and indeed implemented in the UK and other European countries, with the United States not too far behind, can be summarized as follows.

- Massive cuts to public services that are two or three times larger in size than anything we’ve witnessed since the second world war.

- Both capping of and reduction of salaries for public sector workers that will inevitably lead to huge strikes, bringing whole countries to a standstill for weeks on end, further eviscerating any economic recovery. Public sector workers in France and Spain are already staging large industrial strikes. As we saw in Greece, strikes routinely lead to riots and violence.

- Shocking tax increases that if they mirror previous trends could amount to an astounding 98 per cent tax on all earnings over a low level of income. Such increases would virtually eliminate the middle class because all earnings over around £20,000 ($28,000) would almost entirely go straight to the government. Knowing that such exorbitant hikes would cause millions of people to try to evade tax, thousands of new tax inspectors are being hired to crackdown on evaders. In the United States, 16,000 new IRS agents were recently hired in anticipation of people avoiding massive tax hikes that are in the pipeline, as well as new taxes as a result of Obamacare, which will begin to be implemented in the coming years.

- Cuts in social welfare payments that will devastate the poor if they are already laboring under runaway inflation. The economically deprived will take to the streets with a mind set of nothing to lose if the government handouts they have become dependent on are drastically reduced.

- VAT increases for people who already pay some of the highest income tax levels in the world. Europeans are forced to pay a 15-25 per cent surcharge on the purchase of most items and services, and this stealth tax is only set to increase. Greece recently upped its VAT from 21 per cent to 23 per cent. In the United States, President Obama has made it clear that a value added tax is “still on the table” as the IMF also outlines plans for a financial transaction tax which amounts to yet another insidious stealth tax on consumption.

- Governments will try to seize pension funds by continually raising the retirement age so pensions are constantly kept out of reach until people die. In Greece, the government is linking the pension to the average life span index, so most people won’t even get it before they die. Strikes across France in response to similar proposals have closed schools, delayed flights and caused chaos.

- In many European countries, laws govern the amount of employees private companies can fire in any one period of time. In Greece, the number of people companies will be allowed to lay off has doubled from 2% to 4% of their work force. Taken to its extreme, this could double unemployment in the private sector, placing yet more strain on unemployment benefits, which will also be reduced, and driving people into poverty.

Over the past couple of years, most Americans have shown little concern as austerity measures were imposed on financially troubled nations across Europe. Even as austerity riots erupted in nations such as Greece and Spain, most Americans were still convinced that nothing like that could ever happen here. Well, guess what? Austerity has arrived in America. At this point, it is not a formal, mandated austerity like we have seen in Europe, but the results are just the same. Taxes are going up, services are being slashed dramatically, thousands of state and city employees are being laid off, and politicians seem to be endlessly talking about ways to make even deeper budget cuts. Unfortunately, even with the incredibly severe budget cuts that we have seen already, many state and local governments across the United States are still facing a sea of red ink as far as the eye can see.

Most Americans tend to think of “government debt” as only a problem of the federal government. But that is simply not accurate. The truth is that there are thousands of “government debt problems” from coast to coast. Today, state and local government debt has reached at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. It is a crisis of catastrophic proportions that is not going away any time soon.

A recent article in the New York Times did a good job of summarizing the financial pain that many state governments are feeling right now. Unfortunately, as bad as the budget shortfalls are for this year, they are projected to be even worse in 2012….

While state revenues — shrunken as a result of the recession — are finally starting to improve somewhat, federal stimulus money that had propped up state budgets is vanishing and costs are rising, all of which has left state leaders bracing for what is next. For now, states have budget gaps of $26 billion, by some estimates, and foresee shortfalls of at least $82 billion as they look to next year’s budgets.

So what is the solution? Well, for state and local politicians from coast to coast, the answer to these financial problems is to impose austerity measures. Of course they never, ever use the term “austerity measures”, but that is exactly what they are.

The following are 22 signs that austerity has already arrived in America and that it is going to be very, very painful….

Jerry Hartz, a top aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, predicted a government shutdown is more likely than not to arise from the escalating struggle in congress over government spending, according to a report released by Politico on Friday.

Hartz reportedly weighed in on the contentious issue at a routine meeting with Democratic chiefs of staff. According to Politico, his remarks were unsolicited. One unidentified chief of staff told the outlet the remarks appeared to reflect a "genuine" concern.

President Obama sent his proposed budget for next year to Capitol Hill this week. But before lawmakers deal with that spending blueprint, they first have to settle a big fight over how to keep the federal government's lights burning for the rest of this year.

A stopgap funding measure expires in two weeks, and House Speaker John Boehner wants to replace it with one that carves out tens of billions of dollars from current spending levels. The Democrats who run the Senate are balking amid growing talk of an imminent government shutdown.

Boehner did little to tamp down speculation about the first government shutdown since the mid-1990s when he appeared on NBC last Sunday. Asked if he was willing to rule out such a shutdown, he would only say this: "Our goal is to reduce spending; it is not to shut down the government."

At a news conference at the Capitol a couple of days later, Boehner was asked whether the spending reductions Republicans were seeking might end up putting even more people out of work. He acknowledged this was indeed possible.

As the direct result of being corruptly and illegally enslaved to and controlled by the Gotha-Rothschild Lenders the "US" (Union Zionist Socialist Republics) is in violation of the Constitution not is failing to provide for the common defense against the ever present enemies of poverty and deprivation (New Deal) but in totally and abjectly failing to provide for the common defense against enemies manufactured by the offensive CIA mafias Mujihadeen Al CIAduh, which together with the illegal offensive standing army are an illegal "common offense" against the entire rest of the planet formerly offensively serving corporate fascists (United Fruit) and now serving the special offensive Gotha-Rothschild interests of and solely for the ZioNAZI Gotha-Rothschild Christianists and Likudniks.

All war debts since the Korean War are illegal Gotha-Rothschild induced debts -none should be repaid them. It should be a simple forensic matter to expose the corruptly bought off (which) politicians who corruptly on behalf of their lenders entangled us in these offensive wars of aggression and into borrowing the funds from these wars financier-promoters, falsely in our names.

The parts of the Pentagon that are neither sea nor air "Navy" nor National Guard are illegal and must be closed and disbanded. Only our veterans interests should continue to be funded and all foreign-land conquests and continued occupations must cease. The militias must all be returned to the States and the illegal standing federal Army must be disbanded. America isn't and has not been at war with any nation, you cannot call a posse of bounty hunters looking for a hundred guys a "war".

Stalemate Over Funding Could End up in a Repeat of 1995 Crisis that Set Back GOP

By HUMA KHAN abcnews.comFeb. 21, 2011

With Democrats and Republicans at a stalemate over how to fund the government, just two weeks shy of the deadline, there's a real threat that the federal government could shut down for the first time in 15 years, affecting thousands of Americans.

The last time the federal government closed its doors was in 1995, when then-President Bill Clinton and the Republican-majority Congress failed to come to a compromise on the budget -- twice.

"Shutdown: A Passport to Confusion," "Tourists, Hunters and Shopkeepers Feel the Impact," screamed headlines at the time.

“[House Speaker John Boehner is] being misled and pushed around by his conservative freshmen who don't remember what happened in 1995, and not only don't fear a government shutdown, but they actually say they welcome one. Sarah Palin, leader of this right-wing group, said on Thursday, last Thursday, on Long Island that she wanted a government shutdown."

-- Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on a conference call with reporters

Democrats are daring Republicans to continue to press for deep cuts in federal spending with a potential government shutdown now just nine days away.

Agencies in the Obama administration are making ready for a government shutdown and congressional Democrats have responded to Republican calls for deep spending cuts with a proposal for no reductions and accusations that House Speaker John Boehner is a pawn of Sarah Palin.

Agencies throughout the government are scrambling to figure out how to handle a government shutdown, with a potential closure as soon as March 5 prompting a review of which activities are essential and which aren't.

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said federal departments have been exploring issues raised by a possible shutdown, including which operations are crucial and how employee furloughs would work.

"It would be irresponsible not to have that, and so we do," Mr. Goolsbee said. "That's not in any sense like we're planning for a shutdown in a strategic way. I don't think there's going to be a shutdown."

If lawmakers don't approve a funding plan by March 4, when a stopgap spending measure expires, many government operations will have to stop.